8

by Mike Barnard July 28, 2015

John Maclean

2015

Given the wealth of western movies throughout cinema history and Quentin Tarantino producing a modernist take on the genre with Django Unchained, it is with some surprise that Slow West manages to provide an iconic take on the genre.

7

by Mike Barnard April 30, 2015

Joss Whedon

2015

Such is the love for Marvel’s Cinematic Universe series of movies that kicked off with Ironman seven years ago, this second Avengers entry was possibly more eagerly-awaited than the forthcoming Hunger Games finale, James Bond’s Spectre or the sci-fi behemoth Star Wars Episode VII. The superhero super-series has managed to please comic book fans while also finding a vast mainstream audience keen to see the development of Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) into a team under the stewardship of Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson).

5

by Mike Barnard April 26, 2015

Chad Stahelski

2015

Keanu Reeves has been badly in need of a career reboot since The Matrix trilogy ended. Nothing came from potential franchise-starter Constantine in 2005 and the years since have brought a few interesting indies such as A Scanner Darkly and Man of Tai Chi, while The Day the Earth Stood Still and 47 Ronin were flat-out flops made with blockbuster budgets. Revenge-actioner John Wick arrives on a modest budget of $20million under the direction of former stunt coordinator Chad Stahelski to give Reeves the Liam Neeson treatment of kickstarting his career as an aging professional killer reluctantly forced into action, and proves there is life after Neo.

8

by Mike Barnard March 9, 2015

David Robert Mitchell

2015

Retro synths abound on It Follows, a chillingly-effective horror from writer/director David Robert Mitchell. His take on the dangers of promiscuous sex among teenagers delivers a dark, _The Ring_-like impending doom throughout with its washed-out colours and Rich Vreeland’s 80s soundtrack amplfying the low-tech era which offers no place to hide.

4

by Mike Barnard March 3, 2015

Matthew Vaughn

2015

Not since the Austin Powers trilogy has there been a big budget spy spoof of any note. Two lukewarm tries for Rowan Atkinson’s Johnny English and Saturday Night Live flop MacGruber were high profile failures in the years since, but with James Bond so serious in the Daniel Craig era there’s plenty of ammunition for a direct hit. Step up director Matthew Vaughn who again uses a graphic novel as his source material as he did with Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class. But for all of Kingsman: The Secret Service’s self-referential in-jokes and winks to the genre, its violent tendencies and slap-dash plot make for a surprisingly dull ride.

7

by Mike Barnard December 28, 2014

Peter Jackson

2014

The Hobbit trilogy finally succumbs to its unfathomably bloated running time to prove that three films was at least one – possibly two – films too far. The original The Hobbit short story has been added to considerably to act as a full prequel to The Lord of the Rings trilogy to the point this film wraps up nicely for another viewing of The Fellowship of the Ring with even greater purpose, but getting there wasn’t worth Peter Jackson going back to the director’s chair for three installments.

8

by Mike Barnard December 2, 2014

David Cronenberg

2014

When director David Cronenberg made his mark as a director, it was a bloody one with a glut of body horror movies that gave birth to his theme of the new flesh. Cronenberg’s films used to involve scientists or voyeurs pushing their minds and bodies to the limits. These days the body horror which was so visceral at the start of David Cronenberg’s career has become more about horrors inflicted within battered minds. The shift started with A Dangerous Method bringing psychoanalysis into his musings, then the turgid Cosmopolis sauntered through a whizz kid’s empire caving in as he is blinded by the realities around him. Now Cronenberg moves on to examining the ugly underbelly of Hollywood as Maps to the Stars exposes the darker realms of the home life of movie-makers.

5

by Mike Barnard August 18, 2014

Patrick Hughes

2014

Perhaps 10 years into the future we’ll be able to look back on the seven Expendables movies in the franchise and remember all those golden moments when various ageing action stars made their mark on the series. Until then, we have to sit through a load of turgid action scenes and – mainly – woodenly-acted plotting just to get to those few moments in each that tap directly into our nostalgia-driven memory of action movies from the 1980s. Adding around half a dozen seminal additions to The Expendables pot of gold is The Expendables III which has plenty of tired action, a lot of poor delivery, a half-arsed story and roughly 15 minutes of quality cameos and amusing self-referential lines.

4

by Mike Barnard August 5, 2014

Michael Bay

2014

“Give the fans what they want and let the sponsors foot the bill” may sound like some warped slogan for the World Cup, but it’s equally applicable to the increasingly-lucrative Transformers franchise Michael Bay seems intent on making into a major global economy in its own right. For this fourth installment he’s dropped a troubled Shia Labeouf for a more reliable, but equally bankable, Hollywood box office star Mark Wahlberg, added stronger family themes, moved a third of the action to China in a bid to make it more appealing to the huge cinema market there and thrown in a glut of product placement to help pay for it all. The result has already made Transformers: Age of Extinction the highest grossing movie of the year with more than $1 billion at the worldwide box office, and we haven’t even touched on whether the film is any good.

7

by Mike Barnard March 6, 2014

Phil Lord, Christopher Miller

2014

Over the years the increasing product placement in Hollywood cinema has become downright in-your-face to the point Hasbro have been happy to churn out three-going-on-four Transformer films and another based on Battleships to act as big screen adverts for its products. When the news broke of a movie based on Lego building blocks, you’ll forgive me for fearing the worst. At least with Hasbro’s efforts there was fan demand for a Transformers film – Lego seemed to be a bizarre choice for a full length feature, arguably even more so than Battleships, adapted from the board game and as middle-of-the-road as a sci-fi action blockbuster can get. Yet for all my pessimism, The Lego Movie is something of a marvel that may be daft and frantic, but its also hugely entertaining with a wicked sense of humour and captures the joy Lego has brought to millions of people throughout the world without acting like an overblown commercial.

The UK Film Festival 2013 came to a close on Friday, November 15th with an afternoon of documentaries and award winner announcements. One of the most striking images came from Exit, the long documentary winner, which saw a real suicide bomber detonate their device in Afghanistan as the Norwegian makers were filming. The expose on how the country is coping as outside armed forces withdraw packed a punch, as did many of the award-winning screenings that afternoon at the Aubin Cinema in Shoreditch, London.

9

by Mike Barnard October 28, 2013

Alfonso Cuarón

2013

Alfonso Cuarón proved himself a master of visual power in the cinema after the breathless Children of Men featured long takes from the heart of battlefields. Now he’s taken his eye for the spectacular into space with Gravity, a film that is possibly the most effective use of 3D yet. He and co-writer son Jonás stage a thrilling fight for survival as astronauts Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) become stranded while on a mission to deploy a satellite. What follows is an intense experience in the most convincing depiction of zero-gravity.

8

by Mike Barnard October 8, 2013

Ron Howard

2013

After the acclaim of Formula One documentary Senna, it was only a matter of time before Hollywood found a big story from the sport to give it the glitzy treatment. In the case of Rush, they chose wisely – the rivalry between James Hunt and Niki Lauda in the 1970s was a thrilling contest of drama on the track, and equally challenging of it. In Chris Hemsworth as the British charmer Hunt and Daniel Brühl playing the up-tight Austrian, Rush is a classic chalk and cheese rivalry that, while not historically accurate, makes for a gripping, near-factual drama.

Fighting against Lovebox’s myriad charms, Backyard Cinema offered an alternative option for Hackney’s various trend-setters and trend-ignorers, on a smaller scale but no less fun. What began as a homemade cinema in North London back garden has grown into an attempt to reinvent the cinema experience with a variety of quirky additions (some deliberate, some not so). Now they run mini film festivals at interesting venues across London with a selection of cult classics and more up-to-date movies.

8

by Mike Barnard July 23, 2013

Evan Goldberg, Seth Rogen

2013

Actors have roughly one opportunity to lampoon themselves, and it normally comes in a short cameo role at the end of their careers with no guarantee of the success. Think Sam Jones in Ted and David Hasselhof in Piranha 3DD – one inspired appearance, the other insipid. For This Is The End we get a rare spoofing of the personas of current comic talent such as Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride and Jonah Hill as a massive James Franco (not particularly known for his comic timing) party is interrupted by the apocalypse. Directed by common collaborator with the gang Evan Goldberg (Pineapple Express (2011), The Green Hornet (2008) and Superbad (2007)), there’s plenty of scope for them to poke fun at each other’s missteps, and the star turn cameos serve as welcome curve balls on their real life personas on and off-screen.

6

by Mike Barnard April 21, 2013

Joseph Kosinski

2013

When the Tom Cruise show hits cinema screens, you know there is going to be a gloassy finish to whatever you see. Oblivion is a wannabe sci-fi epic set on a scorched Earth with Cruise playing Jack Harper – one of two remaining humans ensuring the planet’s evacuation to Jupiter moon Titan is successful. Tron: Legacy director Joseph Kosinski adapts his own graphic novel (published to coincide with the movie release) giving Cruise plenty of time to look broodingly troubled and action-man cool in equal measure, but ultimately the time required for much-needed exposition is dropped in favour of lavish set pieces leaving a baffling climax.

3

by Mike Barnard March 24, 2013

Lee Daniels

2013

Nicole Kidman has generally picked her film roles by balancing commerical potential with quality content. Often she’s managed to bag an award or seen her films become box office monsters, rarely having to go red faced with embarrassment at the results. Sadly for Kidman, The Paperboy is a misstep which manages to feature at least two of her most excruciatingly bad scenes ever captured on camera and few of her illustrious co-stars escape potential for ridicule. Oscar-nominated director Lee Daniels (Precious) clearly had the trust of Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey and John Cusack, but his adaptation of the Peter Dexter novel lets them all down.

6

by Mike Barnard March 16, 2013

Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer

2013

The challenge for the three directors of Cloud Atlas is to keep audiences engaged as six storylines set across more than 500 years are thrown at them at will, rarely pausing in the same period for more than a few minutes. The mosaic approach to reproducing David Mitchell’s novel on screen is admirable, particularly as the Wachowski siblings and Tykwer differ in styles, but divide the storylines between them. The effect is a genre-blending movie which flits almost randomly from one setting to another, yet is all the more arresting for it.

In 1949, Los Angeles was under the corrupt control of Mickey Cohen. As he plans to expand his influence across the west coast, a covert squad of LAPD officers team up to end his reign of terror once and for all. That’s the story driving Gangster Squad in UK cinemas Thursday, January 10th and billed as the gangster film for a new generation. It has a predigree cast with Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Josh Brolin and, as the iconic mob boss Mickey Cohen, Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn too. Ahead of its release, we look at 10 of the best gangster performances over the years.